Users have superimposed images of bombs over backpacks, questioned hand gestures and bag-carrying techniques, and constructed elaborate theories for spectators’ behaviors: Why is he looking that way? Where did his shoulder bag go? Have we considered strollers? The leading suspect in the subforum right now is “Blue Robe Guy,” a man with a backpack that faintly resembles the one recovered from the bomb wreckage.

Since then the FBI has asked that people stop jumping to conclusions in the media and online; the investigation is sensitive and all the armchair policing isn’t helping the forces on the ground. Not to mention that considering all the various hunts, scores of people are being implicated in the bombing that are completely innocent.

Investigating these bombings is just not a job for “the crowd,” even if technology makes such collaboration possible. Even if we were to admit that Reddit was “more efficient” in processing the influx of media around the bombing, which would be a completely baseless speculation/stretch/defense, it still wouldn’t make sense to create a lawless space in which self-appointed citizens decide which other citizens have committed crimes.

But there is one thing we can be sure of: Maybe not during the investigations in Boston, but someday, as digital cameras get sharper and pattern matching software evolves, someone in a chat room or blog post is going to correctly identify the perpetrator of a high profile crime before the police. And make it really public.

On the one hand, the amateur investigator may have saved a case from going unsolved. But at the same time, they created at least one anecdote that people will use to violate law enforcement’s domain of investigation in the future.

The police may say “back off” but what if people are beating them to the punch. Saying nothing of the ethics, or dualism between online and offline worlds, we still need to be prepared for when those self-appointed investigators actually help.